Wagner Wants Gas Tax Increase

At least Frank Wagner is open about his desire to raise our taxes. He’s short on details about how much he wants to take from us raise and how the money will be spent. This will be a hard sell, Mr. Wagner.

(The News & Advance article) “Curing the commonwealth’s sluggish economy requires investment in transportation infrastructure, according to state Sen. Frank Wagner, one of four candidates vying for the Republican gubernatorial nomination.

“The Virginia Beach Republican wants to raise new money for large infrastructure projects by changing and raising the gasoline tax and plans to “wear it” on his sleeve during the GOP primary.”

“You cannot talk about growing and diversifying the economy in Virginia without talking about a bigger investment in transportation. It can’t be done,” Wagner said. “… I want to treat the underlying disease. It’s going to take a capital investment to do it.”

“Wagner is fresh off the 2017 General Assembly, where one of the legislature’s main responsibilities was reworking the biennial budget to fill a $1.2 billion budget gap.”

“They’ll tell you, we’ll just streamline government to get it. Well, we just streamlined government to the tune of $1.2 billion,” said Wagner, a Senate Finance Committee member and one of the conferees who negotiated the final spending plan. “It’s pretty streamlined, you know.”

So Mr. Wagner thinks Virginia’s budget and spending is “streamlined”? Its quite concerning if he is right out of cost cutting / savings ideas and thinks its time for tax increases.

Cost saving options abound in VA’s budget if legislators will just restrain themselves from spending on “nice to do” items over something necessary. Our own Tom Garrett exposed a classic example in 2015 when he objected to $1.5 million in the state budget for more yurts (fancy middle eastern-style tents) in state parks.